Tomato circle

Tomato circle

Friday, May 13, 2011

Mothers Day 2011

Happy Mothers Day everyone! I got the best Mothers Day gift of all - My Mom! (And Dad) drove a whopping 14 hours to come visit lil ole me this past weekend! Its so nice to see family when you live 1000 miles away from them!

We of course headed to our Saturday Farmers Market up at Lakeline. Mom and Dad looked over everything and Mom was snapping photos of me talking to our favorite vendors and buying yummy food!


And of course my favorite Mule, my husband Mike was being the dutiful husband and lugging around bags for all of us as well as being a great host to his in laws!


There were lots of great vendors and some new faces too! This art vendor had super cool stringed mirrors that would look great hanging from trees!


This week our bounty included:


Garlic, Beet and Carrot Salad, Beef Skirt Steak, Raw Cheddar Cheese, Marinara Sauce, Strawberry Cheesecake, Lump Crab Meat, Goats Milk, Kale, Bok Choy, Tomatoes, Tuna Steaks, Cinnamon Bread, Habenero Pasta, Watermelon Radish, Lavender Hand Cream, Peppers, Italian Cream Cake, Puppy Treats, Quiche and Pastries!

Later in the day, after market treats - we headed to Marble Falls and had lots and lots of pie! Seriously, if your anywhere near the Bluebonnet Cafe, stop by for Pie Happy Hour!!

Dilled Green Beans and Big Jar Pickles

I decided to expand my pickling to a new veggie this week - green beans!
I buy them from Busch Farms for cheap at the farmers market and they were super easy to clean and cut the ends. I used a Knorr's packed called " Dilled Green Beans" as well as vinegar and sugar and let the jars cure for 48 hours in the fridge. They came out sugary and sweet with hints of garlic and punch of dill flavor. Good Stuff!


Im sure no one is surprised that I am still making pickles like a wild woman - especially since cucumbers of all shapes and sizes are available at the market. I decided I needed to expand and pick up some big jars so here is the new sizes Im making.





I think they are so pretty and of course - SO YUMMY!!

Drunken Dried Fruit Fun



Everyone knows that eating fruit is one of the best things you can do for your body. Everyone also knows that it can be a total pain in the ass. :) Have you seen the new product called "Fruit 2 Day"  http://www.fruit2day.com/
Its essentially a fruit cocktail in a bottle with a tad more liquid. You can't quite drink it, you can't chew it. Its just a bizarre situation in your mouth IMHO.

My solution to more fruit around our household is the much beloved dehydrator to the rescue! For this round, I used 3 different types of fruit. My favorite - pineapple rings, mango slices and red grapefruit. * A disclaimer - none of the fruit I used was local and it was probably dripping in high fructose corn syrup but I wanted it very sweet and thought that was the best way to try it first. Once fruit becomes more available at the market, I will go the pure natural route.



I dried these at about 180 degrees for 14 hours.

The Grapefruit probably could have used another hour or so.

But they were tasty tasty tasty!!

In fact, my husband litereally got 1 strip of mango right after they were dried and I ate the entire rest of the jar in 1 day.

They fit nicely into jars and are ready for whenever we are!


** As a fun side project - I added about 6 dehydrated pineapples to 8 oz of local Tito's vodka to make some pineapple infused vodka! We let it set about 2 weeks and then tried it. The shot was amazing with strong hints of pineapple and then if you eat the fruit itself, its like taking a shot. How exciting! Fun with fruit!!